Osama Bin Laden and Mohammad Omar have many friendly places
to flee to, due to the fact that they have achieved almost cult status
among many in the Moslem world, even though their presence
would cause extreme embarrassment to the political leaders. This is
the main reason why they would not be likely to flee very far from
what has become their home for the last ten years.

Consequently, stories about possible whereabouts of Osama Bin
Laden and Mohammad Omar in the Sudan, where the former lived for
some years in the early 1990s, are purely speculation, because the
Sudanese government has been quick to align itself against
international terrorism. Other countries quoted in press stories are
Somalia, Yemen, Chechnya, the Philippines and Indonesia (Aceh).

None of these would provide a viable option. Somalia's flat terrain
would place a fugitive there at great risk of being discovered and
attacked. Indonesia and the Philippines are too far away for an
escape from Afghanistan to be planned at present.

The Yemeni government is trying to court the friendship of the USA
and hiding in Chechnya, whose terrorists Osama Bin Laden has financed
and supplied with equipment would place him at risk of capture by
the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. What is left is nearer to
home, the most probable, and safest, hiding places being the
Pashtun tribal areas of northern Pakistan or Pakistani Kashmir,
which Bin laden has also equipped and financed. Although the
Pakistani government is favourable to the United States of America,
in both of these areas, Pakistani government authority is imposed by
tribal elders who share a conservative vision of Islam. Both areas
are sufficiently mountainous to provide a safe refuge in a rugged
terrain, hostile to outsiders.